When we got into the car to go to music, Abby surprised me by climbing all the way into her car seat this morning! Normally, she gets in and plays with the buckles on her seat until I get Shawn strapped in and come around to her side. Not this time! She jumped right in her chair without even thinking about it. Once it had sunk in that she had actually done it, she had a huge smile on her face. It wasn’t a one-time stroke of luck either – each time we got in the car today, she climbed right into her chair as if she’d been doing it for months. What a big girl!
For the past few weeks, Fridays have been extremely busy, perhaps a little too much for one day. We’d start with music, have a break for lunch and maybe naps, and then go back to Gymboree for Family Gym (and Open Gym depending on the nap situation). However, today is our last day in this particular music class at Gymboree. Next week we’re moving music to Wednesdays so we can spread things out a bit. It should help Fridays seem a little less hectic!
Still, for today, I think we were at Gymboree as much as some of the teachers were! We had Music, Family Gym, Open Gym, and this evening was the Sweetheart party in honor of Valentine’s Day. (Abby wasn’t feeling up to joining us at the party this evening, I think she had had enough!) Shawn and I did a lot of driving back and forth, but we had lots of fun. Raj met us there after work and Shawn’s eyes absolutely lit up when he saw Dadda walk through the door. We made a Valentine with his painted hands, ate red velvet cupcakes, “mailed” pretend Valentine’s cards, and, of course, a variety of games and activities. The Halloween and Christmas parties were a lot of fun, but this one was led by two teachers that Shawn didn’t know. I think it inhibited him a little. The teachers were very nice, but it seemed to me that they may have even been trying a little too hard! There were a few activities Shawn didn’t want to participate in and simply watched the other kids instead. With the action packed day we’ve had, though, a little people-watching offered some well-deserved downtime!
Oma sent me a web link with someone’s home video of Chicago’s blizzard and asked if we had experienced what was shown in the movie. The time lapse shows 17 hours of snow in 41 seconds. Pretty cool to watch, especially if you didn’t have to actually live it! Anyway, I'd say that's pretty much what we saw from our windows, too. I took pictures, though didn't have the forethought to do any time-lapse type stuff. I wish I had done something like that with our grill in the back yard! Even with street lights on, it got a little hard to see after the sun went down, though that's when the really impressive winds picked up and the streets completely disappeared - even the dips of the curbs vanished. The land really took on a barren, other-world appearance. Very eerie.
I think all of the streets are back to normal now, though parking lots are about half their normal sizes because of the snow mounds that take up the parking spaces. There were a few special dump trucks that had heaters in them to melt the snow that the plows would load into their backs, but they were really just used on major roads and at the airports where they needed the snow gone quickly and didn't have anywhere to push it out of the way. We've gotten a few more snow flurries since "the big one," but just enough to make people grumble and get nervous about getting any more - not really anything we would've gotten excited about before.
Gotta love Chicago weather!
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